The right brain, on the other hand, functions in a non-verbal manner and excels in visual, spatial, perceptual, and intuitive information. The right brain processes information differently than the left brain. For the right brain, processing happens very quickly and the style of processing is nonlinear and non-sequential. The right brain looks at the whole picture and quickly seeks to determine the spatial relationships of all the parts as they relate to the whole. This component of the brain is not concerned with things falling into patterns because of prescribed rules. On the contrary, the right brain seems to flourish dealing with complexity, ambiguity and paradox. At times, right brain thinking is difficult to put into words because of its complexity, its ability to process information quickly and its non-verbal nature. The right brain has been associated with the realm of creativity.
Left brain thinking describes our current way of thinking very well.
Right brain thinking is a surprisingly accurate description of the thinking of First Man and of many indigenous people.
Somehow we changed to almost entirely left brain thinking, and so we have become murderers that can and will kill any life form, including our own. Not for food, but for an idea, a thought. We kill because they--whoever "they" are--do not think like us; or because we want what they have.
We have lost the ability to think in wholes. We take everything apart, name the pieces as single objects, and believe ourselves exceedingly clever because we are learning how the universe works. We have science. The systematic measuring of what is. And the great majority of us do not know that we are many steps behind the avant-garde physicists and mathematicians who explore realities beyond our man-made reality and have come up with a thinking that is surprisingly like right brain thinking.
Left brain thinking has given each of us an I, and the ridiculous idea that our individual lives are important, so important that many of us, at least in this country, spend fortunes to prolong life a month or two, or even years. When it should be obvious that in the real world of nature it is the survival of a species that is important, and the survival of the planetary ecology is of course the most important. We deny that, or forget it, and may well destroy our own species by our left brain elevation of I, me, mine. There are no I's in the real world of nature; an alpha rooster is no more important than the one at the bottom; and, from my observation, the difference between alpha and all the rest is minimal.
Modern Man sees "things," objects, against a background. The natural world we think of as the backdrop of our theatre. Or as unending resources. The land of this planet we see as a thing, property to be owned, bought and sold.
First Man and most indigenous people could not imagine "owning" land. After all, the earth is our mother, of whose essence we are made.
Man, thinking with his left brain only, decided there are hierarchies. If I can own land, I can own my wife, my children, other people. Owning makes men better than women. Some people better than others. Isn't it obvious that when we invent hierarchies we not only see them everywhere, but sooner or later one man owns it all. One of my favorite authors, Ursula le Guin writes: "Owning is owing; having is hoarding."
Today, 2009, Modern Man takes for granted that it is up to us to design a (better) world. And because we are now thinking with our left brain, we have created many worlds, because every third person has ideas about what world would be best. Best for what, for whom? Some of us feel so strongly about our particular world that we wage wars against other ideas about worlds. We use our thinking to design more and more ugly ways to kill and destroy. Our thinking designs endless ways to control people, tell people what is allowed and what is not. We designed money, and those who think money designed ever more abstract ways to make more money. And so, the many worlds we designed are split and stuffed into millions of smaller groups, often designed to protest the larger design.
Ancient people always knew that communities are not designed, they grow. It's an organic process.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
4
3
2
